Mexican Rave

Interviewing Gomez’s vocalist is more difficult than you might think, because there are three of them, Tom, Ben and Ian, who share vocal duties with equal aplomb. Listening to the album, I wasn’t really aware of this fact, but sitting in the Temple Bar Music Centre, having seen them rip through their soundcheck, it’s surprising how well it sounds and looks.

This time last year, almost nobody had heard of Gomez, and now the band, who took their name from a friend’s surname, have their debut LP, Bring It On, nestling comfortably for the last three months in the upper reaches of the UK album charts. Meanwhile, their second single, the laid-back swamp rock of ‘Get Myself Arrested’ has catapulted them to the status of the music press’ latest big thing, giving the band a chilli and guacamole flavour of the month status. But Gomez certainly aren’t bandwagon hoppers.

Four of the five early twentysomethings were friends for years before the advent of Gomez, but the line-up was only completed when Ian met the bespectacled and gravelly-toned Ben in Sheffield, where they were both studying. They promptly ensconced themselves in a garage in their home town of Southport (20 miles outside Liverpool) to record some demos. The resulting tapes snowballed into a frantic A&R frenzy of record companies vying for their signatures. By way of comparison, think of Ronaldo being spotted by a Serie A scout in the Doctor Marten’s League.

“We gave the tape to Steve, our manager, who at the time was working in a record shop, and he passed it to a few friends, and they passed it to their friends until everybody in the entire music industry had a Gomez tape,” recalls Tom. “It went ballistic. Suddenly we met all these A&R men from all over the globe.”

So did they go through the whole wining and dining experience?

“Yeah, it was cool, getting lots of food for free,” laughs Ben. “But seriously, I’m still trying to get the weight off that I put on when we were going through that – I put on a stone.”

“It was ridiculous,” smiles Tom. “We were doing these showcases in a rehearsal room in Sheffield. They were all coming up and piling into this little room and dancing – it was weird. It eventually came down to where we couldn’t keep doing it, so we packed 30 of them into a tiny rehearsal room and played them a gig – that was hilarious.”

“I think they were more intimidated than we were, because the competition had got so great that we were becoming kind of blasé about it,” smiles Ian. “We knew who we wanted to sign with, whereas they were hedging their bets. We were about to fly off to LA and go through the whole thing over there and we just went ‘No. Stop the bus. We know who we want to sign to’.”

Hut were the lucky label chosen and the band haven’t looked back since. Most of their debut album, the excellent Bring It On, comes from these original tapes which started the ball rolling, and the entire finished album was self-produced.

“It’s an album in the old sense,” says Tom. “We’re still small enough that when you meet people and you tell them you’re in Gomez, they ask what kind of music you play? And it’s difficult even for us – we don’t categorise it.”

What about being dubbed the next big thing?

“That’s just arse, isn’t it?” smiles Tom. “I mean, next big thing, what is that?”

“Next big thing implies that you’ll get somewhere and then there’s going to be a million copycat bands – and I don’t think that’s going to happen to us,” says Ian.

“The point is that the whole environment suggests that you’re gong to have to in some way be that next big thing,” says Tom. “We might grow into that, but it isn’t going to be anybody else pushing us into it. With the album, it seems to be just growing of its own accord. If it had just been based on the press, we would have instantly sold a million, which proves that people don’t really pay a great deal of attention to the press. The album has picked up as more people have heard it and talked about it.”

“People just get exposed to the music and make their own decisions and hopefully our form of pop will . . .” muses Ian, momentarily lost for words.

“Cos there’s nothing else to sell us on, is there?” laughs Ben, helping out his colleague.

It’s true that Gomez aren’t exactly in the male model league, but does this mean that they’re not all going for the Boyzone haircuts and harmonies then?

“Fucking right we are,” laughs the shaggy-haired Ian. “Well, we’re trying to go for it but I don’t know if I’ve managed it yet.”

It transpires that Gomez have a particularly cunning plan to recruit a director and choreographer for a boy band-esque video. “Don’t let them know we’re taking the piss. Let them think that we’re really serious about this change in direction,” says Ian, before realising that the tape recorder is still on. He smiles ruefully, “OK then, we can’t get an Irish director now ’cos they’ll read this.”

• Bring It On is out now on Hut.